


Husks

by universalworst



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Broadcast, Episode Style, Gen, Humor, Night Vale, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, Weirdness, janitors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-13 08:25:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4514871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/universalworst/pseuds/universalworst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sunrise.<br/>Sunset.<br/>Sunspot.<br/>Sunstare.<br/>Sunconquer.<br/>Welcome to Night Vale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

You put your right foot in. You put your right foot out. You put your right foot in, and as tendrils ensnare your ankle like a vine, you lament and despair your foolhardy decision to tempt that which is unknowable. **Welcome to Night Vale.**

* * *

 

 **NEWS.** Well, dear listeners, it seems that spring has finally sprung. Gone are the days of zip-up hoodie sweatshirts and huddling around the bonfire in the rec center for warmth.

The city council emerged from their underground winter bunker this morning, blinking their weary eyes in unison as they adjusted to the sunlight. They howled joyfully before the litany of reporters who had gathered for their annual reemergence, signifying the official beginning of spring in our little burg.

The city council members aren't the only ones celebrating the changing of seasons. We've received word from old woman Josie out by the car lot that the angels are standing hand in hand, emitting heavenly tones in a song that can be neither described nor understood.

The janitors here at the station have emerged from the Maintenance Staff lair deep within the break room, weak and emaciated from months of hibernation. They are now gorging themselves on the donuts I brought in to share with my coworkers today. Hey, janitors, go easy on the donuts! Those are for everyone!  
  
We've also heard from John Peters—you know, the farmer. He says he expects a real bumper crop this year. "Yessir, this is the year," Peters announced to a small crowd of curious citizens, most of whom claimed to be visiting the farm to investigate a low humming noise emitting from beneath the earth. "My peach trees are quiverin' with anticipation for this year's harvest. Literally, the trees are quivering. Oh... Oh, no.... No, no no!"

The trees then proceeded to split open vertically, one by one, as large black-winged beetles the likes of which none of us have ever seen before crawled, then flew, from the empty husks of the hollowed-out peach trees. The beetles clustered into a swarm of biblical proportions before arranging themselves, en masse, to make giant, hovering, buzzing letters, spelling simply, "IT HUNGERS". As the plague of insects disassembled and attacked, horrified onlookers ran screaming for their sad, empty lives.

Why did they run? Why did they care? Would their families even miss them if they vanished within a swarm of unusually intelligent and cooperative beetles? No, they realized... No, they would not.  
But they ran nonetheless, as their self-preservation instincts overpowered reason.

It's great to hear stories about local wildlife responding to the seasonal change. More on this story as spring continues springing. But first, the **COMMUNITY CALENDAR**.  
  
**Monday** , we will be performing our bimonthly "hive mind" drill. The sheriff's secret police have asked all citizens to remain grounded and aloof throughout the day in preparation for the mind-merging event. They also advise to avoid any independent thought in the hours leading up to the drill, and listeners, I cannot stress the importance of this enough. We all remember the catastrophic and endlessly bloody drone incident of 2008. Yes, I know that this is "just a drill," but what purpose do hive mind drills have if not to prepare us for the coming blood space war? ...None, dear listeners. None.  
**Tuesday** , Dark Owl Records will be hosting a concert and potluck dinner in Mission Grove Park. As usual, the potluck will be "meat only", and you are not invited. "Don't even know about this," Michelle Nugyen, owner of Dark Owl Records, said to me over the phone several minutes ago. "Don't know."  
**Wednesday** is currently struggling with body image issues. "Why do they call me 'hump day'?" Wednesday lamented. "Are they saying I'm fat? Get a life and leave me alone!"  
**Thursday** is turquoise.  
On **Friday** , the PTA will be holding a memorial service for those PTA members who died in last week's tragic scorpion incident.

Now, as all you cat-lovers out there know, spring is a special season for the station kitties! Khohshek and his now not-so-tiny litter of kittens, all of whom hover happily at fixed points in the men's bathroom, have been shedding their winter husks, making way for their colorful and highly aromatic spring coats. It's actually been a bit of a hassle for the men at the station, since, as we all know, a cat's winter husk is classified as a level 3 biohazard. The janitorial staff, now plump and energetic after _rudely_ eating all the donuts and _refusing_ to share with the rest of the staff here at the station, has been reluctant to clean up the husks and take them to the local waste disposal and wildlife experimentation plant.

"That's not our job," the janitorial staff insisted. "We are _not_ going in that room. We aren't equipped to deal with this situation, neither physically nor emotionally. We just woke up from hibernation, for Pete's sake! We're also allergic to cats. Haven't we told you? Very, very allergic." The janitors then began to cough and sneeze theatrically before returning to their lair deep within the bowels of the break room. In the meantime, I've sent station intern Blake into the bathroom to take care of those husks for us.

Godspeed, Blake.


	2. Chapter 2

And now, a **public service announcement**.

Night Vale, do you think and drive?  
Are you thinking and driving right now?  
Are you capable of shutting down conscious-level cognitive processes at will?  
Have you even tried?  
Try it now.  
Try harder.  
Harder....

Melt into the soothing sepia tone of my voice. Forget your corporeal form. Forget about things like water, and birthdays, and shopping lists. Forget about everything.  
Let the tranquility of your empty mind consume you like an eternal dreamless sleep.

...Wait, are you in a zen-like meditative state behind the wheel? Doesn't that seem a little dangerous to you? For shame, listener! For shame. Pay attention to the road! And remember: always think and drive.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by the Night Vale chapter of Mothers Against Meditative Driving.

Alright, listeners, we've been getting a lot of calls and emails and ritualistic chants about this week's **number game** , so get those polished pebbles ready and sprinkle salt in a protective circle around your blood sacrifice, because it's time to play!

Last week, 4, 87, and 6.00001 were the favorites to win, but 27 surprised us all when it brutally devoured all other numbers on the board! This week, 10 and 7,000 have been neck-and-neck, but we we haven't heard the last from 934 _i_ , which returns to the field at last after fully recovering from its existential crisis. Critics continue to berate the number, calling it "imaginary" and "useless outside of establishing trigonometric series." When reached for comment, 934 _i_ pointed out that all numbers are imaginary, if you think about it, and that mathematics is simply a manmade mechanism designed to apply reason to a senseless universe.

Oh... Oh dear.... It seems 27 has once again devoured all other numbers in a bloody but ultimately...incorporeal massacre the likes of which I've never seen before.

Those of you who rolled 27, please move forward 27 spaces.

Those of you who did not roll 27.... Well, we all know what happens to you.  
  
Um, I'm getting word from intern Blake about an incident in the station restroom... It seems he has been trapped inside. The janitors, in a display of rebellion and solidarity, have apparently barricaded the restroom from the outside using thick wooden boards and long-forgotten sealing spells bound by sigils painted in the janitors' own blood.

Blake...apparently knows this because they've shouted this information to him through the door. One janitor, a man with a face weather-worn and scarred from years on the custodial battlefield, collapsed outside the door. With his last raspy breaths, he whispered, "We are not going into that room. No one is going into that room. Not until those husks are gone."

Of course, this presents a problem, seeing that the now-inaccessible door is the only way in or out of the bathroom... Actually, this presents multiple problems. Khohshek—  
I...

I need to go do something, here's a **MESSAGE FROM OUR SPONSOR.**  
  
Do not let the politicians or scientists fool you.

The ice caps are not melting.

Rather, what once was earth is now transmutating into water.

But don't worry about that now. Why worry, when you have music to see you through your fleeting life?

Ten years ago, you bought your first iPod. Ten years before that, you listened to a Walk-man. Ten years before that, you carried a boom box on your shoulder, and no one understood your music.

Ten years in the future, the oceans will begin to rise very noticeably. You will not care. You will be listening to your Plutonium-powered musical scooter, and as you scooter through your derelict town, thoughts of what you once were pass idly through your mind. Those thoughts will no longer trouble you, ten years later. You will live in a small settlement in what once was Kansas, and is now "New San Francisco," complete with a miniature Golden Gate Bridge on the water front. The old Golden Gate Bridge, like so many other things before it, has now turned into cool, mildly saline water.

Ten years after that? Well... You won't be around anymore then. At least, not in the inertial reference frame from which we view you. You, and everything and everyone you once held dear, will be water. Everything and everyone you once despised will also be water. And upon the surface of the ocean that now encompasses the whole of our planet, a massive structure will rise from the depths and declare its presence in four bolded capital letters.... **S O N Y**.

This message has been brought to you by Sony.

**Sony. "And the winds of change erode not that which is eternal."**


End file.
